On 1st September 2022, UL Provost Professor Shane Kilcommins, together with Dr Sandra Joyce, Interim Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS), Dr Ger Coffey, Course Director of the LLM in Human Rights in Criminal Justice from the School of Law, AHSS and Dr Angela Farrell, Assistant Dean International AHSS, welcomed a group of six female judges from Afghanistan to the UL campus to mark their enrolment on the LLM programme. The judges were forced to flee Afghanistan when the Taliban took control of the country just over a year ago and have recently been resettled in Ireland. Over the past three months, they have been preparing for entry to the LLM programme on a specially designed bridging programme. This has been delivered by teachers Zoe Lawlor and Elizabeth Shannon from the University of Limerick Language Centre, in conjunction with ISPhD students Kamilia Mebarki and Sarah Smail.
Here is a link to a recent RTE report with two of the group, which provides details of their former professional lives as judges in Afghanistan in the years following the overthrow of the first Taliban regime, when the rights of women to pursue education and their careers were re-established after being denied for many years. It goes on to tell the story of their terrifying ordeal and escape when the Taliban re-took control of the country last year https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022/0817/1316175-afghanistan-refugees/.
Welcoming the group to the LLM programme, Dr Laura Cahillane, Senior Lecturer in the School of Law, AHSS commented, “this initiative took a lot of work particularly from Justice Shireen Fisher and the International Association of Women Judges to make it all happen. When Shireen contacted me initially last year, most of the Judges were still in Afghanistan and we weren’t even sure how they were getting out, so to see them here now in UL beginning new courses is amazing”.
Justice Fisher served as a trial judge on the War Crimes Chamber of the Internationalised Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2005-2008) and is currently a Justice on the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone. Following her initial contact with Dr Cahillane, she has worked closely with Assistant Dean International-AHSS, Dr Angela Farrell, Dr Ger Coffey and the ULLC teachers to assess the needs of the group and to develop appropriate supports to facilitate their entry to the LLM programme, and to address their ongoing academic needs. From this, a close and fruitful relationship has developed with all involved, as the Justice has commented, “ Working with Angela and with UL has been a joy. All the relevant people and departments of the University with whom I have interacted have demonstrated a commitment to providing a high-quality educational experience for the judges, while retaining the flexibility necessary to meet the needs of this unique group of women. The Institution’s humanitarian ethos is truly inspirational."
The judges will be guided throughout their two-year programme of study by the LLM team of the School of Law. This is led by Course Director Dr Ger Coffey and includes Professor Shane Kilcommins, Dr Alan Cusack, Dr Johnny Connolly, Professor Sean Redmond, and Eoin O’Meara-Daly.
As Dr Coffey commented last week after hosting a lunch for Justice Fisher and the group, “ I am really delighted to have met these brave and honourable judges from Afghanistan and look forward to working with them on the LLM in Human Rights in Criminal Justice.” They will be further supported on their LLM journey in relation to their academic English skills by Dr Catherine Martin and Michelle Daly of the TESOL/Linguistics Section of the School of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics, AHSS.